Enoch

I think the Pack should still be favorites to win their division (although the injuries they've suffered on the DL are threatening that). The Jets look 7-9-ish to me, but maybe Favre lifts them to 8-8.

Arcanum. Interesting setting, cool music, acceptably intriguing inciting event... But then the gameplay and the character systems sucked so hard I was embarrassed for the designers just playing it. (Seriously, did Troika hire a team of retarded rhesus monkeys to design their character and XP systems? Because if they didn't, they should have tried it-- it couldn't have turned out much worse.) I stuck around long enough to see if the story and characters would redeem it, but they fell well short of expectations, too.

Beatles -- Baby You're a Rich Man

Eels -- Bus Stop Boxer

Prince -- When Doves Cry. Can you picture this?

The housing market sucks if you're trying to sell. But it's beautiful for people like me who don't own a home but will be looking to buy in the next few months. Prices keep falling, mortgage rates are still relatively low, and owners are willing to accept offers that would have been laughed at a year or two ago. The only drawback is that selection isn't as good as it could be, since people like Hurl who would like to sell are opting instead to sit on their investment and wait until the market turns. Yeah, the maintenance of owning versus renting can be a hassle, but it also comes with the benefit of long-term appreciation, huge tax advantages, and the ability to renovate, remodel, or otherwise do whatever the heck we want with our home. (Plus, in our case buying would also mean we move from an apartment with a 3'X6' balcony to a house with an actual yard.)

Yeah, at some point when the market has a stronger selection of mid-level PCIeX1 soundcards, I'm planning to grab one and get off of mobo sound.

I've finally gotten around to reading Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. About halfway through now. (By the way, thanks to Pop for his endorsement of the novel way back in this thread's early pages.) Chabon's prose is eternally surprising and inventive. And he's clearly having fun playing around with the detective fiction genre here, although in a fascinatingly creative alternative-history setting (short version: Isreal lost the 1948 war, and the American government created a federal district in the Alaskan panhandle to be a temporary homeland for the Jews; the story takes place in the weeks before this territory reverts back to Alaskan control).

Yes. To the letter. Not necessarily. Something in that area was leaked, but I don't think it was ever confirmed that this offer was on the table during the draft. And there were reports of a mini-camp shouting match between the TE and management, which probably lowered the team's assessment of his value somewhat. Anyhow, it's a more-than-fair price for Shockey, whose repeated lower-leg injuries have left him nowhere near the receiver he used to be (or thinks he is). It'll probably hurt them a little this season (they'll miss Shockey's run blocking, in particular), but long-term, the Giants got the better of this deal. It's a "sell-high" move: getting good value for a player whose performance is declining. As for the Favre drama, I concur with Hurlshot's assessment. Managment is (correctly) taking the long-term view. If their assessment of Rodgers being a capable starting QB is correct, testing him out (and hopefully extending his contract) is the right move. That team is mostly young and loaded with talent-- they can be competitive for titles for the next 5 years if they get decent quarterbacking. I wouldn't throw that chance away in return for 1 more year of Favre followed by big questions at the QB position. That said, I don't see Favre as a villain or anything. There doesn't have to be a "bad guy" in every dispute. Sure, he looks emotionally immature with the whole "I'm retired"/"No, I'm not" drama, but if he wants to come back and play, he should. The Pack can probably get some value (a 3rd or 4th round pick, or perhaps a body on the DL to fill in for all the injuries they're dealing with) trading him to an AFC squad who wants to rent a QB for a year to try to make a run (the Jets and Ravens are the best fits).

Hardly surprising. Writing for video games is by and large pretty crappy. (And, when it's good, it tends to be far too sprawling to fit decently in a film.) A lot of what makes the games popular is the gameplay experience, which is stripped away in film adaptations. When the weak writing and characters are asked to support the endeavor alone, it often collapses. Really, the only reason that these films were videogame spinoffs in the first place is marketing. I'd be willing to bet that almost none of them were created because someone played the games and thought that they would make a really good movie. Rather, they take a property with good name recognition in the target demographic and either write up a script based on it, or repurpose an existing script that wasn't good enough to get produced on its own. Spinoffs of all kinds are huge now because so much of the cost of producing a movie goes into marketing, just to get the target audience aware of the film and give them an idea of what it's about. A spinoff gets you that level of awareness for a much lower cost than an original title.

it's hardly "getting away with it" if there is no legal standing for congress on this issue. last time i checked, this is a battle between the executive and legislative branches and no determination has been made as to which side has constitutional mandate. i'm not even sure this is something the supreme court would (or could) hear, which ultimately means there ain't much congress can do. taks Congress has plenty of legal standing:

It was a hot night. Hotter than night has any right to be. The sun had crept away a few hours back, but the heat... The heat hung around like the stale scent of a lover after a noontime tryst. The ceiling fan twirled lazily overhead, moving as fast as it dared without scattering the mountain of paper on my desk. I poured myself a bourbon. I knew it wouldn't help with the heat in the air, but there might just be enough left in the bottle to get me through another night ignoring the fire in my heart. Things had been good. Business had picked up enough to get my Smith & Wesson back from Vinnie's pawn shop on 3rd Avenue, and to finally pay Suzie the bonus I'd promised her for cracking the Stevens case while I was too hungover to answer the phone. And it had been almost three years since Marie. Marie. The preachers say time heals all wounds, and the shrinks say acceptance will lessen the pain. I'd almost convinced myself they were right until Thursday... Until she walked in. She said her name was Scarlet, and her lips certainly played the part. She strolled into the office on three-inch heels, looked me in the eye and asked for my help. I looked up from the Racing Form and was caught in her gaze. Those eyes... Deep brown and full of sadness and desperation. Those were the kind of eyes that make a man want to move the heavens just to see the tiniest glint of happiness in their depths. Those were Marie's eyes. Her case was a simple missing persons job. Her ex-husband stopped sending her his monthly check back in May. She called his place and found the phone cut off. She went by there, and his landlady told her she found his window broken one morning two weeks back and hadn't seen him since. She said the cops didn't give a sh!t, which is surprising-- back in my day, a knockout like her would've had half the force falling over itself to track the bastard down. I guess that's what happens when you get a new commissioner who quietly tosses all the officers who aren't "good family men." But of all the two-bit shamuses in this town, why would she come to me? I never liked deadbeat ex work. I got no problem with husband work-- drunks, adulterers, and punchers all they deserve what they're getting. But once a man was out, divorced in a court of law and just looking for a clean start somewhere, it just felt wrong to chase him down and drag up the past again. But I couldn't say no to those eyes. And now, it turns out that the case ain't that simple. It stinks. It stinks like a corpse that doesn't have the good sense to lie down and stay dead. It stinks like Marie did, when I found her behind the Chinese laundry on 38th Street, chewing on the arm of the Johnson's kid. Like she did when I aimed my Smith & Wesson at her forehead and pulled the trigger.

To me, the key isn't how rare magic is, or how much people love/hate/respect/fear it. Above all of that, I want it to be mysterious. Magic, to me, captures the sense of wonder with which pre-scientific peoples viewed the natural world, which can be a very compelling "hook" to get the player interested in the gameworld. It's an opportunity to legitimately hide the rules of the game from the player and give them lots of little mysteries to figure out. (This is, of course, entirely ruined if all the spells are explained in painstaking detail in appendix III of the game manual.) Great wizards like Gandalf and Obi Wan (orig. trilogy version) are intruiging to a large extent because the reader/viewer has no idea what the extent and nature of their powers are. Sure, give us a standard basic beginner's spellbook (easy fire spell, sleep spell, etc.), but leave the higher-level stuff out until it is discovered in interesting ways by the player (i.e., not just selected from a list on level-up), and make medium-to-high level practitioners rare, reclusive, and very different from one another in the abilities they use. (Custom spells and items are awesome.) And, perhaps, leave the explaining of why all this magical stuff works and how it interacts with the rest of the gameworld to be discovered over the course of the game. I have no idea if DA is designed to deliver on this front, but if it does, even a little bit, I'll be quite happy.

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone. @ Sand, I'll be sure to heed that advice, because we all know that your single anecdote is ironclad proof of the villainy of all females in relationships everywhere. (Plus, dull knives are a culinary tragedy waiting to happen.)

They're not saying that they're not going to trade him; all they've said is that the "release" option is off the table. All the talk about him not being the starter (which they're now backing away from) is essentially posturing for trade negotiations. They won't get much for him, but the trade lets them control where he goes, and keep him out of Minnesota or Chicago. GB management is thinking long-term. They have a very talented roster chock-full of promising young players who are still improving, and they're thinking about competing for a championship for the next 4 season rather than just 2008. They like Aaron Rodgers, and he is going into the last year of his rookie contract. If he doesn't get some face time with the offense this season, they have to make a very tough QB decision without having the benefit of seeing him in extended live action. IMO, even with Rodgers at QB, they easily have the best offensive talent in their division. (Heck, it wouldn't take much for Rodgers to be the best QB of the sorry lot they've got in MIN, CHI, and DET.) The defense, particularly the front-seven, is no slouch either. Despite all the hype the Vikings are getting, I still think GB should be the favorites to repeat as NFCN champs.

So, like, I got all married and stuff. (Friday, actually, but I'm sure you'll all forgive me for the slight delay in reporting.) Ceremony, party, et al., went quite well. However, as somebody who is not at all accustomed to wearing jewelry beyond a wristwatch (assuming that the monocle doesn't count), the wedding ring is going to take some getting used to. I think I'm going to rub my finger raw from constantly sliding it around to figure out which precise point on my finger has the right balance of comfort and security.

I think the Packers will be fine with Rodgers, but if Favre actually shows up and hangs around for 2 months (management has said that he's welcome to come back and be their #2 guy) splitting the team into camps that support him or the new guy, and leaking stuff to the media when he's unhappy, things could go south pretty fast. They should trade him to Baltimore. Or maybe back to Atlanta. I doubt they would get much value, but it might be the only way that both parties end up happy.

I am incredibly pissed at myself right now. I missed the deadline for the annual enrollment in my employer's student loan repayment program. I was less than 24 hours late, but the web registration form is already down, and the manager I phoned said that they have a strict "no extensions" policy. I enrolled last year, and it got me almost $5K in essentially free loan repayment (the cost is a promise to keep working for them for 3 more years, or pay them back for it if you leave before that time). I'm assuming that the payout this year would've been similar (the number depends on how many enrollees they get), so my procrastination and inattention just cost me a significant chunk of change.

I usually do the print, sign, and scan (as a .pdf). That way, others can't easily alter the file so that it looks like I've signed off on their edits.

IMO, it's worth playing at least through Ferros and Noveria, two of the main-plot worlds. The design, story, and atmosphere on those two planets were really good (i.e., at least as good as anything else I've seen out of Bioware). Once those are done, going on to finish the game will just leave you disappointed.

Annual tradition: Bruce Springsteen -- 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) Edit: Here's a youtube:

That sounds dangerously like somebody who has narcissism, antisocial personality disorder or generic 'psychopathy'... though I suppose such personality disorders would likely be all but required to score 'evil' on such a test. Somehow, I'm not all that surprised.

Not as weird as a man wearing men's cologne is.

Yeah, this is easy stuff to miss unless you've either been to law school or follow state court decisions a lot. Admiralty is really a pretty unique field, because the SCOTUS doesn't often get to decide common law issues. It was decided a long time ago (in a case involving an accident on the Erie RR) that general common law is unique to each state. Thus, each states' supreme court is the ultimate authority on common law issues like contracts and torts. A party that loses on a purely common-law issue in a state supreme court has no right to appeal to the SCOTUS (and, even if they did, the SCOTUS has no power to overrule the state supreme court on those issuses). Admiralty law is unique because it's a traditional common law area that the Constitution specifically gives to the federal courts alone. Now, there are other pseudo-common law fields of law that have arisen based on very broadly worded statutes. Antitrust is the best example-- the Sherman Act is so broadly and vaguely written (banning contracts or combinations "in restraint of trade") that virtually all of the rules of Antitrust law had to be derived by the courts through a common law process (and, because it's a federal statute, SCOTUS is the final arbiter on the topic). But technically, that's all statutory interpretation, rather than true common law. Also, there is one exception to the common law tradition in America: Louisiana. The origins of its legal system are more French than English, which means that it relies more on statutes than judge-made common law.

I'm trying to think of a Wesley Snipes film in which I thought his performance was "solid" or better. I'm failing. Even in the rare occasions when he's been in a good film (like, say, Mo Better Blues), his performance hasn't exactly been one of the stronger parts of the film.